The director, whose latest film "Mood Indigo," opens Friday, Aug. 1, once again brings a surrealistic touch to his work, this time about a man (Romain Duris) who falls for a woman (Audrey Tautou) with a most unusual ailment.

Gondry, who won an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (which he also directed), talked a little recently about trying to get what he sees in his imagination onto the screen.

Question: How close is what we see on the screen to what you originally saw in your head?

Answer: It's hard to say. … It's pretty close. I do a lot of drawings. … Some of it is really, really close. Some of it is the same. I wanted to preserve the novel. (The movie is based on the Boris Vian novel.)

Q: So you work as much as you can beforehand?

A: If I try to make it too much, I may be contrived. I need to have a bit of surprise on the shooting, so the shooting has an existence of its own. Everything is pretty tied to the shooting. Then it becomes just execution.

A: I just had things I wanted to try. I had an idea how I could make this effect or create this, or I could get this actor to act this way. I wanted to try, like a chemist in his lab. He tries to mix up bacteria and see how they grow. It's really fun for me. In fact, initially we tried to string a succession of drawings of "Indigo" to the lab, and you see them all strung together. … I like that.

Q: So even if you plan things, you still take risks.

A: You put yourself in the position where you don't know what will come out, and even more so, you don't know if it's going to work or not. I think you have to be ready to say that. I mean, it's hard to say, because people invest a lot of money, and you want to guarantee them that they're going to have the riches you expect. But in truth, if you want to make something different and creative you have to take chances. And therefore, you have to have an unknown element, something you can't control in it.

Q: You directed "Green Lantern" in 2011. Could you ever be satisfied making a conventional movie again?

A: Well, the next movie I'm trying to do, I don't think is going to be conventional. It's going to be much more classical in the way it's shot. But many times I watch movies, like an action movie or a period drama, and I think to myself, there is no way I could possibly do that. I'm really a beginner.